Startup Lucid Motors insists it is defying the electrical car curse and will challenge Tesla in China
The Lucid Air. Bryan Logan/Business Insider
Lucid Motors wants to make things very clear: the company isn’t like fighting electrical car startup Faraday Future.
“Let’s distinguish ourselves very first from the screenplay at Faraday Future,” Lucid CTO Peter Rawlinson told Business Insider at Classic Car Club in Manhattan.
A collective investor with Faraday
Since the mid-2000s, many startups have entered the space with promises of creating the next Tesla — a luxury, high-performance, electrified car.
Faraday Future is perhaps theВ most hyped. AfterВ months of build-up, the startup disappointed with its very first big unveiling at CES in two thousand sixteen by only showcasing a concept car that would never come in production. This year, its unveilingВ of a working car was marred by malfunctions on stage, and the business is brief on cash, losing executives, and justВ scrapped plans for a 2nd facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.
That’s where Rawlinson wants to clear the air. Faraday’s financing troubles — which seem to originate from a cash crunch at LeEco itself — don’t apply here, he said.
“LeEco is a minority investor in our company and was a minority investor as part of our series C funding round,” he said. “We received those funds in our bank, we are absolutely independent of any cash crisis.”
Lucid Motors has also secured funding from venture capital rock-hard Venrock and Mitsui & Co.
Contesting with Tesla
Rawlinson was the chiefВ engineer behind Tesla’s Model S, andВ joined Lucid Motors in two thousand thirteen when it determined to pivot from developing battery technology to manufacturing its own electrical vehicles. Other engineers that helped work on the Model S, like Eric Bach, Tesla’s former director of engineering, are now working on Lucid Motors’ very first vehicle: the Lucid Air.
Rawlinson was at the Classic Car Club last Thursday to demonstrate off the company’s very very first Lucid Air prototype: a 1,000-horsepower, luxury electrical car with a 315-mile driving range that will cost over $100,000. (Lucid will also make a base vehicle with a range of two hundred forty miles and output of four hundred horsepower kicking off at $52,500.)
Production of the Lucid Air is slated to begin in late two thousand eighteen at the company’s manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona. Construction of the actual plant is expected to embark the 2nd quarter of this year.
The silver sedan, with its futuristic LED headlights and spacious interior, was meant to convey a very clear message: the Lucid Air is not ‘vaporware.’
“We’ve got a product which is running, which is driving, which is there,” Rawlinson said. “We’re going to take you for a rail in that. Can any others do that?”
Still mysterious
Bryan Logan/Business Insider
Still, Lucid isn’t without its own air of mystery.В
BAIC used to be Lucid Motors’ largest shareholder with a 25% stake in the company. That stake was sold to another investor in March 2016, Rawlinson said. He declined to comment on the who wields that stake now.
“We are not a Chinese car company. I want to state this very clearly,” he said. “We are absolutely, vehemently a fiercely independent American company.”
Rivaling with Tesla in China
The Lucid Air’s interior. Bryan Logan/Business Insider
Lucid might not be a Chinese car company, but Rawlinson said it’s poised to take Tesla on in China, which is expected to see an uptick in electrical car adoption in two thousand seventeen as emission standards tighten.
Outside of its Chinese investors, the company also has relationships in the country — where its own battery tech and powertrain technology was used in a fleet of electrical buses subsidized by the government.
And the company’s batteries, which have been refined over ten years, make the Lucid Air more tolerant to repeated, fast-charging than other electrical vehicles, Rawlinson said. That permits owners to keep the car on the road longer without bruising the battery.
That will be alluring to affluent Chinese clientele looking for a luxury electrical car, Rawlinson said.
“We have a product that is so relevant to the Chinese market,” Rawlinson said. “Tesla hasn’t been as successful there.”
Rawlinson is correct that Tesla adoption in China has been tepid. Albeit it’s revenue in China tripled to $1 billion in 2016, Tesla sales in China are less than a quarter of what the company made in the US, according to Bloomberg.
But that could switch, after Chinese internet giant Tencent purchased a 5% stake in Tesla for $1.8 billion on Tuesday.
The Lucid Air would need to rival with Tesla’s Model S P100D, which has a 315-mile range and starts at $134,500.
But Rawlinson said he doesn’t see the Lucid Air as a “Tesla killer.” Instead, it’s a luxury car that will contest with high-end automobiles across the board.
“This is where we go head-to-head unashamedly with Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and BMW,” Rawlinson said. “Those are the key competitor cars for this market. [and] that marketplace is worth $100 billion a year.”
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